[Python-Dev] multi-version parallel-installed modules (original) (raw)

Neal Becker ndbecker2 at gmail.com
Wed Aug 18 14:34:23 CEST 2010

Is there any proposal to accommodate having parallel-installed multiple versions of modules?

I have client code in multiple projects using version x.y of a C-compiled module A.

I want to test a new version x.z of module A, but all client software needs to be recompiled against the new version. If I just install the module, all the other client software breaks.

I know I could test using virtualenv, but there would be a lot of modules to install into virtualenv to run the tests, so this would be cumbersome. I'd prefer to have multiple version co-exist so I could update projects to the new version at my convenience.

How does this situation happen? I have lots of c++ code using pyublas, which allows c++ code written to the boost::ublas interface to operate on numpy vectors/matrixes. pyublas is built against boost libs. pyublas installs a module, whose purpose is to register conversions.

When I update boost libs, I have to rebuild pyublas and install the updated module. Then rebuild my client software modules. If pyublas is built against a different boost version than my client modules, the conversions will fail.

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